Break My Fall
by greyrondo
Summary: Zidane did wonder how easily Kuja and himself could have switched places, given only slightly different circumstances.
1. Apocalyptic Dreams

Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) do belong to me.

I originally started working on this when Silkscreen Requiem just refused to be written, and soon I found myself typing out eight chapters of this over a period of three days. Please enjoy and review!

**Break My Fall**

"Kuja! No, don't you dare close your eyes one me—"

Zidane's gaze fell and he pulled his bleeding brother close. This couldn't be happening. Zidane had figured that it would all work out; that as long as he tried, then he could save his brother.

"Please," he said to no one, "I wish—I wish that this had never happened. I wish that we could have switched places. That he had been the one to live in Gaia, and me on Terra; that way, I could save him. We're not that different, right? I wish that I could have—"

And then he choked on his words. What felt like a blunted spear had pierced through his midsection. His arms went slack and he dropped Kuja; his eyes fled immediately to the last shaft of light filtering through the tumultuous branches. It filled his gaze, and…

**Chapter One: Apocalyptic Dreams**

Late morning sunlight filtered through the windows into the halls of Alexandria Castle, setting it afire like a shimmering cathedral. But inside, it was a little too quiet and still for such an exciting day; not only was it the final night of the Alexandrian Theatre Festival, it was also Princess Garnet's sixteenth birthday. So Queen Brahne took her conversation to the outside terrace.

"_I Want to Be Your Canary_ is the final performance of the night? I remember that you told me it was your favorite. That it reminded me of your late husband, the king…?"

"Yes," Queen Brahne sighed. "I can't tell you how much of a comfort you've been in these past two weeks. It seems like I've known you for so much longer."

"You can't expect everyone to understand. Your husband's vision could easily be misinterpreted."

"Before he died, he said to me that he wished that the entire world be united under hope and light such as that which ruled Alexandria," Queen Brahne reminisced as she gazed out over the town below the castle. "I just didn't have any idea how to possibly fulfill his dying wish until you suggested that I do it myself. And with your tip about the summons, it's almost as if it were meant for me to do this. She was sent to me, after all."

"Princess Garnet? Yes. Your husband—you really loved him, didn't you? It wasn't just one of those arranged royal marriages. I can tell just by looking at the princess… it doesn't matter that she wasn't the one you gave birth to. She's beautiful on the inside as well as the outside, and it proves that the love you shared with your husband was beautiful, too. I think it's quite something that you want to preserve your husband's legacy like this. I mean, what good's a crypt or mausoleum, really, when you can build his dream instead?"

"Just one question for you," Queen Brahne said as she turned her back on her kingdom and faced her conversation partner. "Eidolons are all well and good for large attacks, but what am I to do about foot soldiers? Not that my Alexandrian soldiers aren't capable, but I don't know how General Beatrix will take this. She does overthink things sometimes. Perhaps I should replace her with someone whose loyalty is unquestioned, like Captain Steiner."

"An excellent idea, your Majesty. It's not General Beatrix's fault, but anyone who is apt to misunderstand you should have no place in your husband's dream. And you're absolutely right—you need soldiers on the ground that can't possibly be defeated. If you would give me but the smallest bit of time, I'm sure I'll find something for you."

"Do I have your word?" Queen Brahne asked.

"Of course. I'll get my hands on what you're looking for, or my name's not Zidane Tribal."

* * *

"Stupid, fat elephant woman," Zidane muttered under his breath as he walked himself down the stairs. The queen trusted him so much that he went without a guard escort even though he was, technically, just a player from Lindblum participating in the festival. But that just proved to Zidane how idiotic they all were.

What was he supposed to do about her request for foot soldiers? The summons were one thing, they were already sleeping inside Princess Garnet's body, waiting for tonight when she would come of age and they would stir, just begging to be plucked and used for his—pardon, her mother's—purposes.

He guessed it would have to be something magical, something that would dazzle the elephant woman. But magic wasn't exactly his thing—he didn't come here under the guise of a merchant of death, after all.

He stopped walking so loudly when he heard voices float down from the staircase on the upper floor. Looking up, Zidane shrunk against the banister and listened just in case it was something interesting instead of the usual court melodrama.

"You are completely hopeless."

That was General Beatrix.

"I—I am not! Beatrix, it's not my job to know where her Highness is at all times; I'm her tutor, not her governess. Why don't you yell at Captain Steiner instead?"

And that was… well, Zidane just smirked at the notes of fraught panic he heard in his voice.

"I'm not yelling at you!" General Beatrix insisted, her voice notably louder than necessary. Then she seemed to realize this, and she sighed heavily. "There's much for the princess to do today, what with it being her birthday, and she was to immediately come downstairs after her white magic lesson with you."

"You don't have to sound so accusative. When I went to her suite, she was still abed. She'd mentioned to me that she'd been having that nightmare lately—the one with the storm—so I thought that it would do her well to get an extra hour of sleep instead of exhaust herself over white magic on her birthday. If she disappeared after that, it's hardly my doing. Have you checked her usual haunts yet?"

"No, you were my first thought," General Beatrix admitted, and it came out oddly as she said it. After a moment's hesitation, the conversation continued.

"Well, that's charming enough. I would offer my help, but I think that you'd believe I was just in the way. Go speak to your soldiers. Make them do their job, and let me get back to mine."

One pair of footsteps walked off, but General Beatrix remained. "You wouldn't be 'in the way'," she sighed to herself. "I guess I should have said that to his face, then. He must hate me…"

How adorable, Zidane mused. But he had better things to do than listen to General Beatrix's dysfunctional flirting. If the princess had run off, then maybe he could run into her and they could have a nice conversation. Maybe she liked _I Want to Be Your Canary_ too. Personally, he thought the play was so sappy that it made him sick every time he heard someone quote from it.

As he left through the castle doors, he caught sight of a strange kid running past him on the manicured lawn, chasing after a butterfly. The kid wore an oversized straw hat that looked as if it had been ripped apart by Mist-spawned beasts and sewn back together in several places, and an ill-fitting blue waistcoat over what appeared to be striped pajama bottoms. Since there weren't any guards chasing after this out-of-place boy, Zidane had to assume that he actually belonged here on the castle grounds. That didn't make sense, so Zidane followed. If the kid got suspicious, Zidane could always ask where the kid had found the hat.

But the kid was oblivious, or at least found the butterfly infinitely more interesting than the blond-haired player walking casually behind him. A gentle wind picked up along the lawn and carried the both of them through a well-trimmed arbor to the dock.

Zidane smiled to himself as he saw the princess. He might not have outstanding magic, but he sure had luck. He wouldn't have recognized her in that huge white robe she wore; the wind had pushed the hood back. She sat on the dock with her feet dangling over the water and she stared meditatively into the pendant she wore around her neck.

But when the strange kid ran over, the almost hurt look on her face forgot itself and looked up just in time to see the butterfly flutter away from the kid and take to the sky. She laughed.

"Vivi, it's all right. What would you have done with it if you had caught it, anyways? Butterflies don't make very fun pets," she reassured him.

"It was going to be a birthday present…"

"You don't need to give me a birthday present. The fact that you're here is enough," she said, and that's when she looked up.

"I've seen you before," Princess Garnet said cautiously as she stood up.

Zidane gave a little bow, and then wondered what would be the best way to change the subject. "I don't blame you for coming out here. I bet you get way too much attention on your birthday. They're making quite a fuss looking for you up at the castle, by the way."

Princess Garnet shrugged, and seemed to drop her guard a little. "It's not really the attention. Everyone is quite understanding. I just didn't want to have to sit through lessons on my birthday. Not that white magic isn't interesting, it's just that—well, never mind," she cut herself off with a blush.

But from what he'd heard, she had been given the day off. So there was more to that sentiment than just sitting through the spells and etching them into memory.

"Interesting lessons can't pull you through every day," Zidane commented, and nodded towards the dock. "You don't mind if I sit down, do you? I think the lake's pretty peaceful to look at. If I had a place like this, I'd come out here all the time."

The princess sat down with some space between Zidane and herself, and Vivi squished in between the two. Zidane noticed the strangest thing about Vivi—he didn't seem to be made of flesh and bones, but instead of some magical matter. Dark magical matter. He sensed black magic, and some Mist, and even what felt like a soul. Strange.

And just when Zidane opened his mouth to not-so-innocently ask about that pendant she wore around her neck, the air between them and above Vivi erupted into a puff of fire.

"Sorry!" Vivi squeaked. "But that was good, wasn't it, Garnet?"

"You're getting pretty good at this black magic stuff," the princess told him. "A little more practice controlling your magic, and soon you'll be setting Steiner's knights on fire. Just a little bit on fire," she clarified as Vivi's eyes widened in terror.

"Black magic?" Zidane asked in confusion. "Vivi, how old are you? I'm Zidane, by the way. Pleasure to meet the both of you, sorry for not introducing myself earlier."

"Nice to meet you," Vivi replied. "I'm going to be six tonight, just like Garnet's going to be sixteen."

Zidane whistled. "Wow, six and already you've got some black magic under control? I don't believe that. I've only known one other person in my life who could cast black magic well when he was six. Where are you from?"

"Here," Vivi answered easily.

"Vivi's one of a kind," Princess Garnet clarified. "When I was about ten, a student from the university arrived at court. My mother set him right up with Doctor Tot and soon enough he was buried in stacks and stacks of books. But that meant he spent a lot of time in the library, and that meant that I always knew where to find him when I wanted to bother someone."

"You were a terrible child, weren't you?" Zidane asked in mock innocence.

"I was not!" Princess Garnet insisted, and it wasn't until she saw the sideways grin on Zidane's face that she knew he had only been joking. "He's my white magic tutor now. His name is Kuja. I used to pull his hair because I thought it was silver thread," she admitted. "And his tail. But do you want to hear the story or not?"

White magic? Zidane thought. Brother, please. Talk about selling yourself short.

"Sorry," Zidane said sheepishly, shrinking a little into his shoulders. But inside, he tried to keep himself from dying of laughter. "I do. Go on. Please?"

Princess Garnet gave him a long, sideways look, and then cleared her throat. "Since he wasn't old like Doctor Tot, I thought he had been sent by my mother to be a playmate. Anyways, I bothered him so much when he was studying that one day he went into his room with a bunch of strange scraps of fabric. Odds and ends that he must have begged off a court seamstress, I guess."

"And one week later he called me into one of the reading galleries upstairs and introduced me to this little person-like creature sleeping there in his arms, dressed in the same scraps of fabric I had seen him carrying. I remember our conversation exactly," she said.

"He placed the sleeping creature in one of the chairs and made me sit down. The first thing he told me was, 'this is Vivi. He is not one of your dolls.'"

" 'But he looks like one,' I said to him, and he answered, 'that doesn't matter. He is just as much of a person as anyone else.' But I had seen him with the fabric scraps, and I told him that I saw him making Vivi, and I said that Vivi couldn't be a person because people are born, not made.'"

Zidane didn't remark on that.

"And anyways, he insisted that Vivi had been born, just 'differently', as he put it. That convinced me when I was ten, so then I asked him if that made him Vivi's father. He paused for a long time before saying 'yes', and then I asked him who Vivi's mother was. And when he didn't answer, he looked down to the lower level and of course there was General Beatrix walking along."

"So I asked him very loudly, 'is General Beatrix his mommy?' You should have seen his face! Vivi woke up right then, which is rather good timing, now that I think about it."

Zidane chuckled. "No, I was right. You were definitely a troublesome child."

And then Zidane had an idea. Vivi didn't have much Mist inside of him; that's probably why he was so small and completely ill-suited to what he had in mind for Queen Brahne's request. But if knew the recipe and made a few changes, like a full-sized body and a lot more Mist, then something like Vivi would be very nice, indeed. Every ruler in this world dreamt of a mage army.


	2. A Reason for Fear

**Disclaimer: **I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) do belong to me.

Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Two: A Reason for Fear**

Compared to Alexandria, Lindblum was quite peaceful. Most of the nobles had gone to Alexandria for the duration of the festival, so Regent Cid had been left in peace. Due to his current hex-induced condition, he would not be making an appearance at the festival this year, even though it was Princess Garnet's sixteenth birthday. He needed to be behind the scenes, working on something much more important.

"No. Father, it has to be tonight. I overheard his conversation with Queen Brahne a few minutes ago, and the research I've done while in Alexandria does confirm that the eidolons inside of Princess Garnet will awaken before morning. I don't believe that either will waste time."

"This would be so much easier if you could transport people besides yourself with that teleportation magic that your mother taught you."

"Hmm. I feel that a hex reversal spell would be even more useful right now."

Regent Cid laughed. "Oh, you've seen worse and you know it. But still, this one really does take the cake…"

"Father, did you do something to deserve it…"

"Uh," Regent Cid coughed. "Kuja, you know how your mother can be sometimes. I suspect she was in this sort of whimsical mood when she brought you home ten years ago."

"Really…? There wasn't anything? Nothing involving anyone who isn't your wife?"

Kuja rolled his eyes impatiently. He knew he was right; he knew that Regent Cid had been having an affair. Again. Not that there was anything he could do about it.

Regent Cid looked at his silver-haired adopted son. "It will be tonight, then. I'll send a message to my men in Tantalus; I can't risk having you seen talking to them."

Only an idiot wouldn't notice that he was trying to change the subject, but Kuja decided to let it go. A part of the reason Queen Hildegarde had adopted him was to curb Cid's habit of wandering, apart from the more widely-spread story that she could sense his magic ability from several blocks away. He didn't change anything, and he had been sent off to study magic in Alexandria when he was of age. Six years later, it still felt like failure.

"I can only imagine what the princess will feel like. Everyone will be fighting over her, and she won't even know why. She wasn't ever told that she isn't the Queen's original daughter," Kuja said quietly. "She doesn't know that it will be because she's from the tribe of summoners."

"But you'll be there," Cid told him. "She fancies you, you know."

Kuja gave Cid a blank-faced stare. He wanted to say: 'unlike you, I have something called a sense of decency.' But this was his father he was talking to, and he didn't know if he hated his father's philandering more than he loved his adopted parents.

"I know. She tries not to be obvious, but…"

"But you're too busy wasting your time on General Beatrix. She seems to dislike you more than the amount one can usually overcome for the sake of love."

Kuja decided that this conversation had outlived its purpose, and was now over.

"Speaking of not being obvious, I should go before I'm missed. Wish me luck, Father. I only have the balance of power on this continent and the lives of thousands weighing on my shoulders tonight," Kuja smiled wryly. Then he closed his eyes, and disappeared in a ribbon of blue light.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, he stared at the floor of his room in the castle Alexandria. "What in the name of the crown…?" he breathed. His room had been ransacked. The papers he kept inside his desk, particularly, had been haphazardly strewn across the floor.

He bent down, and in a subdued panic he tried to put them in order again. He didn't really own anything of value, although he supposed that a few of his spellbooks might fetch a nice price since they were from the Alexandria royal library. But they were all still here; they hadn't even been touched. No, whoever had done this was looking for something different. Something in his papers?

Because they're so interesting, Kuja mused sardonically. They were notes, scribbles of magic that he had come up with. Most of them, frankly, were completely frivolous doodles that a mage of his latent ability should be ashamed of.

He heard a sharp rap on his door and didn't even look up as he called out, "Come in."

"What happened here? Did a wind spell get out of control?"

Kuja looked up. "Captain Steiner," he said in greeting. "Ah, no, actually. I came in here and found it like this. You're just in time; it seems that whoever did this has already left."

"That's odd."

"Yes, very," Kuja replied distractedly as he sorted everything into order. He wished that Captain Steiner would state the reason he was here and go. Then he noticed that out of everything, something was missing after all. "That's strange," Kuja muttered.

"What's strange?" Captain Steiner demanded.

The notes from the time he had created Vivi were gone. "Some of my notes are missing," Kuja explained. "Why would anyone take them?"

Captain Steiner shrugged. "Especially when they could take something like this instead," he commented and lifted up a sheathed weapon to the light. The jewels encrusted into the hilt sparkled in the sun. "It would sell better at Treno than your research, anyways."

Kuja had forgotten about that weapon; he never carried even a small knife on him. "Are you suggesting that the auction houses there acquire their pieces through less than above-the-table means?" he chuckled.

Captain Steiner didn't seem to get that it was a joke. "Of course not," he said gruffly. "We found the Princess, by the way. So if you'll excuse me," he said, and then returned the weapon to its place on the dusty shelf and went on his way.

"Well, if that wasn't strange," Kuja said to himself, his gaze lingering on the closed door while he thought. Without knowing quite why, he took the weapon that Captain Steiner had picked up, and slipped it into his belt where his robes would conceal it.

* * *

Clouds had gathered on the horizon when he went outside later that afternoon; he didn't think it would rain that night, but perhaps rain clouds that had wandered over from Burmecia would cast the sky gray by morning.

"Tonight," Kuja murmured to himself drearily as he passed under the trees. He didn't even hear the footsteps behind him, and jumped slightly when he heard someone call to him.

He knew that voice, and it was with a subtle and annoyed frown that he turned around. It was the blond-haired player.

"Sorry," the player grinned sheepishly. "Guess mages really are nervous types. You ever torch someone by mistake?"

Kuja glowered. "I practice white magic. How can I help you…"

"White magic, huh? Could've had me fooled." Some sort of realization seemed to connect behind the player's eyes. "Oh! You must be the Princess Garnet's tutor, then. My name's Zidane. Pleasure to meet you."

After an awkward second, Kuja decided he had better shake the player's hand. "Kuja," he replied.

"Interesting name," Zidane commented. "So you studied at the University of Alexandria—" he said as he studied something glinting in his palm.

Kuja looked at him in barefaced shock. "That's my ring!"

"Sorry, couldn't help myself. So what's your house, if you studied at that posh place?" Zidane asked casually, and dropped the ring in Kuja's outstretched palm.

"I'm not part of a house," Kuja said delicately as he returned the ring to his right hand, and then decided it would be safer in his inside coat pocket. "I'm from Lindblum. Queen Hildegarde gave me the test that nobles take for magic aptitude, and when I was old enough, she sent me here to Alexandria."

"So what, Queen Hildegarde just plucked you from your parents and sent you off?"

Kuja glared at him, and then turned back to the fountain. "Street children couldn't exactly pay for the white magic to protect them from disease that winter. She found me dying in the slums. If you're really a player, then you're not so far removed from that part of town that the story should be unfamiliar to you."

That seemed to knock sense into him. "I… I'm sorry," Zidane said quietly. "But that really bad one would have been ten years ago, right? Did your parents die during that, or…"

"Why is this of any interest to you?" Kuja turned around and stared Zidane in the face. "I've seen the Queen grant you audience, more audience than a player should receive." Kuja didn't add that he had also heard what had passed during these conversations. "Who are you?"

And that made Zidane smile. "Like I said, my name's Zidane. Zidane Tribal. I'm just a player. You seemed interesting, so I wanted to chat. Are you coming to the play tonight? I heard it's the queen's favorite."

"Of course," Kuja lied. Then he spotted Captain Steiner and General Beatrix behind Zidane.

"Really?" Captain Steiner asked as he nudged Zidane aside. "Because I've heard differently. Kuja, you're under arrest for plotting against the crown with Alexandria's enemy, Lindblum."

"What?!" Kuja demanded. How could Captain Steiner have been smart enough to figure it out? Not that Lindblum was Alexandria's enemy—that part was new.

"Found evidence in your room when I dropped in," Captain Steiner said smugly. Which Kuja knew was a lie; who would be stupid enough to actually leave evidence?

General Beatrix looked at Captain Steiner. "Since when are Lindblum and Alexandria enemies? I haven't heard anything about this. Captain Steiner, is this your version of a joke? It's a very poor one. Kuja, if you'll excuse us, I'm going to have a word with the captain—"

"General Beatrix, stand down."

"You can't order me to stand down, _Captain._ You, civilian. You have no business here. You should make yourself scarce."

Zidane nodded. "Yes, ma'am," and began to walk away. But he looked over his shoulder and met Kuja's eyes, and smirked just as Captain Steiner pulled out an official seal with Queen Brahne's signature on it.

And Kuja's face paled even though it seemed like it couldn't go any closer to porcelain. The person who had stolen his papers had also planted that evidence. Someone—not Captain Steiner—actually knew what was going on.

"Kuja, I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding," General Beatrix told him as the world snapped back into focus. "Just go along with this for now and things will clear up soon enough. You're the princess' tutor, for goodness' sake. You're not exactly out of favor with the queen."

Maybe, maybe not.

He couldn't wait for tonight, Kuja realized. He had to take the princess out of Alexandria at this very moment. "Sorry, Beatrix," he said, and disappeared in a ribbon of blue light.

Captain Steiner had mentioned that they had found the princess. If she were anywhere today, she would be in her rooms. So his destination was her suite. He found her already dressed for tonight, but she had nodded off in a chair.

She woke up and rubbed her eyes. "Kuja, what are you doing here?" she said, her voice still thick from her nap.

Kuja didn't immediately speak. He had been planning on drugging Princess Garnet, but there was hardly time for subtlety now. "We're leaving Alexandria. Right now. Change into something less noticeable, take the pendant with you."

"But—Kuja, you aren't making any sense. Has something happened to you? Are you all right?"

"There's no time! Your life is in danger, Princess."

Princess Garnet stood up. "Then we'll call my guard."

The faith that royals had in each other and in the people they armed baffled him. "Princess," Kuja said quietly, "your guard just tried to arrest me for treason. Can you guess why they would do something ridiculous like that…? You've seen that blond-haired young man around the castle lately, haven't you?"

Zidane. The one who seemed a little too interested in Kuja's past, the one who knew too much about the summoners and the eidolons that Princess Garnet carried. The thief who stole his ring. Suddenly, Kuja thought of his missing notes, and everything came together.

Vivi popped his head into the room from the far door. "Kuja, what's going on?"

Kuja smiled with worry in his eyes as Vivi latched himself onto Kuja's boot. "Vivi, we're going on a short adventure. Don't worry, you're coming too."


	3. Black Magic, White Magic

Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) do belong to me.

This version of Princess Garnet's renaming scene was inspired by my visit to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Three: Black Magic, White Magic**

It had been three days since the princess vanished, and Zidane was uneasy. His brother was less of a space-case scholar than he had hoped, and that ticked him off. Not just because it put his plans on hold, but because it just proved that Garland had meant for Kuja to be the one.

Three days had passed since the festival ended, and if anyone was surprised to see him still here, they kept it to themselves.

"General Beatrix, if you want to keep your position, then you'll pursue them yourself. Bring back the pendant."

"But what about Princess Garnet?" General Beatrix wanted to know.

"I want that pendant! If that feather-headed mage tries to interfere, kill him. It's either by your hand or public execution, so don't think you'll be saving him from anything."

"…yes, my queen."

It both disgusted and pleased Zidane to see how quickly Queen Brahne's vision of light and hope had corrupted into a mad taste for destruction and conquest. He waited until General Beatrix left before speaking up. "I suppose we'll find out soon enough if her loyalty will overpower her infatuation with that mage."

Queen Brahne laughed harshly. "She has her own life to consider, as well. And General Beatrix is a very practical woman. How are things progressing with the Black Mages?"

That made Zidane smile. "I'm glad you asked. You should see the first shipment in a matter of hours. I promise, you won't be disappointed. They'll do just fine for your planned assault on Burmecia."

Then Zidane excused himself. He needed to get away from the woman.

"Just a matter of time," he murmured as he looked over the city. "You're not safe just because she's your queen. I'm pulling the strings, and you're all going to die. You just get to watch everyone else die first."

He never should have told Garland that Kuja was alive. Never. But he wanted to make Garland happy, and he knew that giving him the gift of that hope was the only way he could do it. None of his own accomplishments would ever do.

It had been years ago, in Lindblum, that Zidane had made that jealous discovery. Kuja sat there in a reading room in Lindblum's castle. Like one loving home wasn't enough, so fate had given him two.

And under Garland's orders, Zidane got to watch his older brother grow up for four years. Any other brother should be proud, but Zidane just contemplated the many ways that Kuja could accidentally die. Accidentally was crucial, since it would be disastrous if Garland found out that Zidane had been involved. But that was all hypothetical.

"I'm going to enjoy breaking you before you fall, big brother," Zidane said to no one. It wasn't like he could share this with anyone. "I didn't ask for any of this. This life of subterfuge, lying barefaced to my so-called scoundrel 'friends' knowing that if the chips were down, I'd kill them and wouldn't feel bad about it. I feel bad about _that_, know what I mean?"

Zidane shook his head and laughed. "It's wrong. It shouldn't have to be like that. Your time in the sun's over. I'm going to make you choke on the shadow you cast over my childhood. Now, do I follow General Beatrix's trail, or see how many souls I can acquire in Burmecia?"

Although the eidolons were crucial at first, if Zidane had his way, they wouldn't be necessary towards the end. Eidolons couldn't even stand up against one scrawny twelve year-old kid; the dead race of summoners at Madain Sari proved that. He needed the souls that the eidolons would produce to fuel the fire that would leave Gaia a smoldering husk and provide the spark for a new Terra. A new Terra that included him, not his brother.

But first he needed to make sure of something if he wanted this to work. He needed to find his brother. The most dependable way would be to follow General Beatrix, but he had a good feeling about going to Burmecia. And Lady Luck loved him, even if no one else did.

* * *

"I can't have you calling me 'Princess' or 'Garnet', and especially not 'Princess Garnet'!" Princess Garnet exclaimed, then hurriedly decided to hush her voice. "It'll give me away quicker than anything else, I should expect, even quicker than this pendant—"

And with that thought, she took the pendant and unceremoniously tucked it inside her blouse.

After the previously planned and compensated for airship 'crash', they had parted ways with the crew so that an abandoned crashed airship would not raise any suspicions. Just to be safe, Tantalus had no idea who they were transporting, only that it was by royal request.

From there, it was on foot to Dali, and then to Lindblum, where another airship would take them to Burmecia just in case anyone had followed their trail. Regent Cid had arranged for the princess to stay while the whole problem was sorted out.

Kuja couldn't have been happier to see civilization, even if it was nothing more sophisticated than a farming village. With the bright sunlight, it was becoming a warm day. Vivi had run ahead, curious to see the crops.

"Most of my subjects don't know what I look like. So I just need another name," the princess mused. Then she turned back to Kuja.

"Kuja, what's that tucked into your belt? Is that a dagger? I thought you hated the thought of carrying a weapon."

"It's not a dagger, it's called a 'kris'," he explained as he pulled the shock of silver from his belt. "See how the blade is waved like this? Supposedly, they were used in rituals on the Northern Continent."

Princess Garnet gave him a suspicious look. "I don't see you doing any rituals…"

He shrugged, and slipped it back into his belt. "It's for just in case something happens."

"You thought we needed something like that when we were leaving?" Garnet asked, holding her breath. "Do you know what's happening?"

He looked uneasy. Cid was going to explain as well as he could when they reached Lindblum, but until then, he couldn't bring himself to say anything. "I don't. I wish I did, but I don't have any answers. I just research magic under your mother's good grace. But don't fear, Princess," he added.

She nodded. "I'll take that name, then. You can all call me 'Kris' when other people can hear us."

"Kris? But why that name particularly? It's not very ladylike to name oneself after a… a glorified knife…"

"It's like you said. So I'll be here just in case something happens to you."

Then Princess Garnet—Kris—blushed fiercely. "I mean," she stuttered, "with the white magic you taught me…"

And without another word, she bolted in the direction of Vivi's company.

Suddenly, Kuja wished that circumstance had made it so that Beatrix might have ended up on this journey with them. It only lasted a moment, though. It was much easier to kindly ignore the princess' very misplaced affections than endure Beatrix's hatred.

He understood why the princess was infatuated with him much more than he understood why Beatrix hated him so much. He was practically the only man that the queen had allowed into her company that wasn't a relative or a prospective husband. His face might have had something to do with it, too.

That's where it always came back to. Where could a kid from the slums have inherited a face fairer than any prince—or, for that matter, princess—in all of Gaia? It was obvious he had animal blood in him from somewhere, but what creature had both a furred tail and birds' feathers?

He didn't remember his parents. He didn't even remember his own life before the age he estimated was twelve. The only memories he did have were of his own name and of a burning city. It was a face that had gotten him into misunderstandings at best and near-serious trouble at worst, and he didn't even know where it came from.

Maybe that was why Beatrix hated him. She had spent years and years toiling to overcome her commoners' heritage and her gender to earn her rank, and had even lost what she must have seen as her beauty—that patch hid an eye that could never see again—in the process. While he had been chanced upon by Queen Hildegarde and had everything handed to him.

That wasn't his fault.

"Kuja!!"

He looked up. That was the princess's voice, but where was she? Panic coursed through him. Even after all his precautions, his spells, had they been followed?

It was at that moment that it struck him: he couldn't fight. They had avoided the mist by keeping to the highlands, but beasts strayed from the mist all the time. If they ever found themselves in a position where they couldn't run away, then—

"Princess—Kris," he sighed when he found both the princess and Vivi, back to back against a wall of sickly cornstalks. But then he caught sight of what had snared their attention. It was a fanged, scaled beast that looked at them with uncomplicated and complete hunger.

And he froze. No spells of concealment or defense or even of dispelling the beast came to him. He didn't even breathe.

Time started again when a ball of fire barely missed his head. The beast yelped in pain, and then scampered off.

"Vivi, that was amazing!" the princess beamed behind him.

Kuja couldn't believe what had just happened. The princess was in danger, and he had just stood there, paralyzed. He had no idea why; he wasn't exactly shy about fighting when he lived on the streets.

But Vivi seemed to feel even more ashamed of himself than Kuja. "I just hope I didn't hurt him too bad. I didn't ever think my magic could be used for that kind of stuff."

As they walked into town, Vivi wouldn't look at Kuja once. Kuja wondered if somewhere inside of him, Vivi blamed Kuja for giving him that magic in the first place instead of white magic.

And then Kuja shuddered.

"This place is too happy," he muttered in explanation when the princess looked at him with worry. "Something's not right. Didn't you see how the crops were sick? Nobody was tending to them. How does this village keep itself up this well if they aren't looking after their source of food and income?"

Vivi looked up at him. "Do you think it's safe to stay here for the night?"

"One more day of camping won't kill me, I don't think," the princess said.

Kuja sighed. "It just might kill me, though."

"Are you saying that I can handle being outside one more day and you can't?"

"No!" Kuja protested. "It's less taxing on my magic to hide us if we're in a populated area than if we're out in the wilderness. Here, I don't have to mask our presence entirely. I just make us unnoticeable."

"The only thing you're making is excuses," the princess smirked. "And I think that—do you smell fire?"

Vivi sniffed the air. "It's magical fire. There's not any smoke in the sky, so it has to be someone casting it. Maybe they're using it to light a fire to cook?"

Kuja shook his head and ran a few steps ahead. "No, I feel it now. Black magic, cast with destructive intentions." Running under the current of black magic was a special mixture of not exactly black magic that Kuja recognized instantly; it was the same blend he had used to create Vivi.

"Kuja!" Vivi called after him. He didn't turn back; he thought of the stolen notes and the days they had spent on the way to Dali and that blond-haired young man Zidane's promise to Queen Brahne that he would find her an army to supplement the eidolons.

He stopped when he almost trespassed into the yard behind a building that was certainly doing more than just functioning as a mill. There were black scorch marks on the ground, reeking of black magic.

"All right, they work. That should keep the queen happy. Any idea what she wants all these for?" a man in overalls grumbled to another.

"Dunno, but she's the queen, ain't she? She wants to make a whole bunch of patchwork doll-looking things and fill 'em up with mist and make 'em cast magic, then we'll just have to oblige her. She pays better'n our rotting crops. I've made more for my family in the past two days than all season."

They ambled back into the mill. Kuja sank to his knees. When the princess and Vivi caught up to him, he didn't look at them.

"They're making Black Mages—like Vivi, only wrong," he whispered. "Vivi, I never meant for you to be like this. I swear, I never wanted you to be a tool of war. I never wanted you to have to hurt anyone...."


	4. Something Missing

Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

Freya makes an appearance in this chapter. I always did like her (and red mage outfits are pretty cool too.) Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Four: Something Missing**

Zidane surveyed the site of the airship crash as the ceaseless rains of Burmecia soaked him to the bone. It wasn't fair to call it a crash; it had been shot down, after all. The Black Mages were proving to be quite versatile.

"You said it was traveling from Lindblum?" he asked Captain Steiner. Captain wasn't a very accurate definition of Adelbert Steiner's rank these days, but no one had given him a new one, so the name stayed even though his responsibilities had grown.

Not that Zidane had noticed a positive change in competence. But it was better for Zidane that an incompetent, loyal idiot was in charge.

"Yes, from Lindblum. Mostly cargo, but there were a few recorded passengers."

Zidane rolled his eyes. "Like the people we shot this airship down for would be in the logs. I'm going to see if there were any survivors."

"What do you mean?"

Zidane had already started walking away, but he turned around. "The princess? That traitor mage? You know, those people," he snapped and continued trudging through the muddy rubble. "You stay out there in the rain, your armor's going to get even more rusty than it already is."

With little regard for personal safety, he ducked into the main vessel. He found a few bodies; crew members mostly. But in the back, he saw something silver glinting in the mess that made him smile. Kuja wasn't dead; Zidane was lucky, but not that lucky.

"Come on, get up," Zidane called out and nudged Kuja's ribcage with his foot. As he did, he looked around. No sign of the princess or that little doll anywhere. After a few minutes without any signs of waking from Kuja, Zidane grudgingly squatted down.

"All right, what's your problem?" Zidane demanded. "You're not bleeding, you don't look like you've sustained a serious head injury, you're breathing…"

Zidane wrinkled his nose and looked around. He found a smashed earthenware mug and found the remnants of tea leaves inside. There were ordinary leaves, nothing special, except for one. And Zidane laughed.

"Well, I'll be. You've been drugged. Did the princess slip out on you? I wonder why," Zidane murmured. "Maybe she got cold feet and she's trying to return to her mother. Talk some sense into her…? Go ahead and try, princess. Just make sure you bring that pendant with you."

He hadn't counted on Kuja being unconscious. "Wake up, clueless," Zidane called out as he shook Kuja's shoulders. "Your fancy plan's a washout and your princess has made you look like a fool. Now open your eyes so I can figure out if you have the ability to trance or not—"

"Zidane, can I ask what you are doing?" Steiner asked.

Abruptly dropping the still-unconscious Kuja, Zidane looked innocently over his shoulder. "Looks like we shot this one down for more than just target practice. I found the mage…"

At that moment, Kuja stirred. Zidane watched him wince as he opened his eyes, scrabble for a hold on his surroundings. Then he said, "Rusty, this mage is pretty dangerous. Why don't you let me handle things?"

"Dangerous? What's he going to do, heal you?" Steiner asked in disbelief.

"Don't try to be funny, you're not. And don't assume that just because you've never seen him cast black magic that he can't, and that he isn't very, very good at it."

Then Zidane ignored him. "Hey, Kuja. Rise and shine, princess. And show me just how good your control is…"

He stepped back and flipped the blade of one of his daggers in his palm. They were a little heavy for throwing around, but they'd do fine.

"…over that black magic of yours," Zidane smirked and let it fly.

Kuja had barely dragged his torso up enough to face Zidane before he threw his hand out, his fingers wide in a defensive array. The dagger struck a pearlescent shield and ricocheted askew; it almost struck Steiner.

"What'd I tell you, Rusty?" Zidane called over his shoulder.

As Steiner backed out of the ruined airship cavity, Zidane slung the second dagger through the air. But by that time, Kuja had gathered himself to his feet. He deflected the second one right back at Zidane.

"Sure that's how you're supposed to use white magic? You could've hurt me right there," Zidane chided him as he sidestepped and caught the handle as the dagger flew at him. "But you're the expert, I'm sure."

He lunged down and snapped the other dagger off the floor with his tail; he flipped it back into his palm and stood up again.

"What are you trying to prove?" Kuja demanded, and disappeared in a ribbon of blue light. He manifested at Zidane's back; now Zidane was the one closest to the far wall.

A luminescent arc rushed from his hands and formed a sphere around Zidane: a reversed protection spell that contained everything inside. "What does my magic have to do with anything? Where's the princess?" Kuja wanted to know.

"I can't believe you're still playing the idiot. You must have been doing this for so long you actually believe your act now," Zidane muttered and held out his arms in defeat. He dropped the daggers.

"All right, I surrender. Just give me a second, and I promise I'll explain everything. Not that you won't wish I hadn't by the time I'm done talking."

Kuja sighed impatiently, and the magic from the shield fled back to his open palms. "There. Now tell me: where's the princess?"

Zidane turned around and gave Kuja a long, pitying look. "Kuja, she bailed on you back in Lindblum."

Then he drew the pistol at his belt and fired.

The bullet shattered in a storm of energy. "What do you take me for?" Kuja shouted at him as the resulting smoke settled. But by the time the air was clear, Zidane had disappeared, the daggers along with him.

Kuja frowned thoughtfully. "Good. Get out of here, coward," he murmured. After what must have been minutes passed in rain-pattered near-silence, he sighed wearily and closed his eyes. The tension between his shoulder blades visibly relaxed.

He barely summoned the white magic to defend himself in time. Zidane charged him with both daggers, and the white magic that Kuja summoned forth was nothing more than a small shield that broke and had to be called forth again after each strike.

"Come on, I know it's in there," Zidane said angrily.

"Know—what's—in me? You don't know what you're—talking about—" Kuja retorted as he staggered backwards after each blow. The soggy wood slipped under his foot, and he fell backwards.

An electric jolt surged through Zidane's daggers and the etched spell for protection along the hilt shattered. Zidane dropped them immediately. "That," he laughed. "Those were expensive, you know. You shouldn't use thunder black magic around here, with all this water lying around. Someone could get electrocuted."

Kuja didn't seem to hear him. His eyes had gone wide, his voice had locked shut.

"That's some pretty nice black magic you've got there, brother," Zidane told him.

"…brother?" Kuja whispered. "No," he insisted, and shook his head. "You don't even look like me. You're making this up," he sighed. "You're insane."

"What, just because a guy actually looks like a man, that means he can't be your darling little brother? I've got news for you, Kuja," Zidane said, and drew his pistol once more. He lowered it until it nestled against Kuja's forehead. "I don't have magic, but this gun does. So looks don't matter much, because there's only one family resemblance that's going to save you."

Zidane pulled the trigger and shielded his eyes with his other hand, but not quickly enough to protect them from the sudden rush of white light that flooded the dank cavity. The dredges of water on the soggy floor immediately phased into steam.

The light ebbed, and he looked down. A white-feathered being like an angel torn asunder from its wings returned Zidane's stare with glassy eyes that didn't really register the surroundings.

"The first time you trance is always a little disorienting, don't worry," Zidane reassured him mockingly. "And without a visible threat, you'll slip out in a second or two. Oh—there you go."

Zidane watched as Kuja's steady glare dropped into close-eyed oblivion.

"It's just too bad for you that people tend to pass out after their first trance," Zidane added as he slid the pistol back into its holster and knelt down next to Kuja. He slipped his arms underneath Kuja's shoulders and knees. "Come on, let's go, big brother. We've got things to do, kingdoms to destroy."

But then he wondered; how was he going to get Kuja out of here without turning him over to the Alexandrian forces?

"Garland's going to be so pissed off when he realizes what I'm using his magic for," Zidane chuckled as he withdrew his hand and searched in his pocket for a perfectly round stone. There was the silhouette of a crescent moon, surrounded by concentric circles of ancient Terran text.

"The Invincible," Zidane ordered the charm as it emitted a pale blue light. When the light faded, Kuja was gone along with the charm.

* * *

An hour later, Zidane wiped the blood from his now-ordinary daggers in the soggy grass. These Burmecian knights really knew how to fight. After Kuja, he needed something to distract him. With the rush of adrenaline and the heat of blood, it was easy to forget why he was here and just who it was all for.

No, this is for me, he corrected himself. This is to make sure I don't have to live my life in his shadow after Terra is reborn.

If the princess had bailed on Kuja to return to Alexandria, he hoped that she had been quick about it. The sooner he had those summons, the sooner he could end this torture.

He recalled his last conversation with Queen Brahne before he left for Burmecia. After Burmecia, he had told her, it would be best to lead attacks on Lindblum and Treno simultaneously. She had asked about Cleyra; he had dismissed them, saying that they would not interfere with the happenings of the rest of the continent.

In reality, he had dismissed Cleyra because their population was negligible. And what he hadn't told Queen Brahne was that a third city would be added to that list: Alexandria.

He needed as many people to die in a short period of time as could be possible.

Maybe Mikoto would go back to being a soulless doll like the rest of the Genomes, but he wasn't going to let it happen. Perhaps it was Garland's time to go back to the cycle of souls, not Zidane.

Zidane knew the old man could be a pushover. He would take the Invincible and he would give new life to Terra on his own terms. With the souls in the Invincible combined with the soon-to-be-deceased souls from the cities, he wouldn't even need Garland's help. Garland could just sit back and watch while a real Angel of Death did the job right.

Another Burmecian knight stood in his way. He thought that they would have figured out that they were wasting their lives by now. But when he stared her in the eye, he flinched.

"Freya?" he called out.

He didn't know why it hurt him so much then that she didn't lower her spear. But she did say, "I was hoping I had remembered your face incorrectly, Zidane Tribal. Explain yourself; that's more than any other knight would give you."

Freya, the older rat girl that he had known from the first days he spent on Gaia integrating into the planet's culture. He had been nervous and egregious, even rude sometimes as he acclimated. But for some reason, the quiet Freya had never held any of that against him.

Zidane shrugged. "I guess any other knight didn't live next to me—how many years has it been? Aside from enough for you to become a knight in service of Burmecia, that is."

"Apparently it's also been long enough for you to change, as well," Freya told him coldly.

"I—" Zidane began. Then he changed his mind. "Freya, for what it's worth, you look really beautiful." And he wondered what he thought he was doing. This was hardly the time, but at that instant it felt incredibly important to him to find out if Freya liked him, whether as an old memory or anything else.

Freya only smiled bitterly. "Our current situation aside, now isn't a very romantic time for me. I've only just returned to Burmecia, you see. I would like to tell you that I've spent my past few years a gleaming champion in Burmecia's eyes, but I've been searching."

"Searching for what?" Zidane wanted to know. There had been something important in her life, and he had missed it. Where has this sentiment been hiding when he had used and abused his seedy business partners like handkerchiefs?

"For whom," Freya said ruefully. "I'm in love, you see. So when I do find him again, I want there to be a free Burmecia for him to defend alongside me. Which is why I'm here, I suppose, and you're on the other side of my spear."

Freya was in love.

When Zidane wiped her blood from his daggers, he didn't feel the rush of excitement that he had earlier. He just stood there in the rain, letting its cool touch caress him and remind that he was in fact alive.


	5. Choice

**Disclaimer: **I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

Zidane and Garnet get some quality conversation time in this chapter. Not like that! My goodness…

Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Five: Choice**

Zidane bowed low. "My queen, I have something that I'm working on right now. It won't be ready until after your assaults on Treno and Lindblum, but I assure you that it will blow even the eidolons that your daughter carries out of the water."

Queen Brahne frowned. "But after Treno and Lindblum, only Cleyra remains on this continent."

"Beyond this continent, the world is a darker, less civilized place than even here. You would be doing it a great service to include it in your dream. This weapon I speak of will be a brilliant light, but it can only be used once or twice at most before it… breaks. All of Alexandria will be set ablaze. Metaphorically speaking, of course," Zidane added. "Where is the princess now?"

"In my rooms. You say that after the eidolons are extracted from her, she will stop this erratic and senseless behavior of hers?"

"Certainly. The obedient and loving daughter you know will soon be returned to you," he lied.

"Then do hurry," Queen Brahne ordered him. "I want her to be proud, not mistakenly ashamed."

To that, Zidane didn't have an answer. He rose, and exited the room. But as he nodded himself past the queen's guards, he had a strange ill feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn't shake.

"Mother?" the princess called out. Zidane almost felt bad for disappointing her when he stepped through the doorway and saw her sitting there patiently.

"Sorry, just me," Zidane told her sheepishly. He tried to gather himself together, but one look in her eyes and he fell apart at the seams all over again. What he had told the queen a few days earlier had come back to him: she was beautiful on the inside, not just the outside.

"Zidane?" she said in surprise. "What are you…doing here?"

He shrugged. "You already kind of know why. You've seen me talking to your mother. I'm sure you were told about the eidolons inside of you when you went to Lindblum. That's why you came back, isn't it? You wanted to try to talk your mother out of this?"

"Yes," she admitted, and lowered her eyes. But then they caught fire. "It seems that everyone knew about my past, except for me. Everyone. Even you. I don't even know you."

She stood up and drew closer to him. "I was told that I'm not my mother's child. I'm not even a child of Alexandria. I'm not Princess Garnet. I don't even know my real name!"

Zidane stared at her. "I'm sorry," he said faintly. "I—"

"You don't mean that," she insisted, shaking her head. "No one means anything they say to me. Not Regent Cid, not my 'mother', no. All they're worried about is who's going to get their hands on these eidolons inside of me. That's why you're here. That's why Kuja was with me. The studies, the research, all pretenses. I…"

"Regent Cid wasn't going to use you for your eidolons," Zidane told her. "Trust me."

He didn't know that Kuja had been sent to Alexandria to watch over the princess; he had dismissed the Lindblum royalty too early as a way to get to the Eidolons to know that much.

"I suppose you would know," she said sullenly. Then she sighed, and sat back down. She curled into herself a little. "I told him that I would protect him. I even picked out a different name so that my presence wouldn't threaten him. Well, he's safe in Burmecia now, even if he must be rather confused."

Zidane cleared his throat. "You mean Kuja…"

"His safety would be the only good thing to come out of all this. But now that I've said all that out loud, I suppose you have another way to get at my eidolons in case I make a struggle. Just capture him and—"

She closed her eyes, fighting back tears. "Why am I even talking to you? I can't talk to anyone. Not even the woman who raised me. I suppose that when things come to this point, it doesn't matter whom I speak with."

"Uh, what was that name that you gave yourself?" he asked as he sat down beside her.

"You're here because of the eidolons. Why are you bothering to be nice to me?"

Zidane smiled. It was because of the feeling he experienced after he killed Freya. "Well, because it doesn't make sense, that means you know I'm not faking it. Honestly, Princess—"

"Kris."

"Kris?"

"That's the name I chose in order to protect him. Honestly, I don't know why I did that. Left him. I was angry, but I think even more to the point, I wanted to do something for myself for once. So I don't resent the fact that you're here. It was my choice to be here. And that choice is…"

But she couldn't say another word.

"She still thinks of you as her daughter, you know. And Alexandria loves you. That makes you a princess, I think. More than just being born in the right place at the right time."

Something seemed to let go in her gaze and the tears fell. And inexplicably, Zidane suddenly found his arms around her. It was something that his limbs had done without his knowledge; like it was something that they remembered.

But that wasn't right. Zidane had never held someone like this. He was desperate, and this was something that came out of that despair. "It's going to be okay," slipped out of his mouth, and he found that it was a lie that he wanted to be true.

She didn't pull away, but she did stop crying. "Answer me truthfully: is this of her own free will, or is it because of you that she's doing this?"

"Will you think badly of me if that's the case?"

"I would have to know your motives for me to give you an answer to that. But my question first."

"Ladies first," Zidane mused. "Fine. Yeah, she's doing it because of me. But the thoughts were there already. She wanted to bring light to this world, and this is how she's going to do it."

"That's ridiculous! Conquering other kingdoms and killing their subjects is not how you bring light to the world! That just begets even more bloodshed."

"Believe me, Kris, when people get ideas into their heads, there's nothing this side of reason that'll get them out again. My old man's that way," Zidane said. Then he shook his head to get the image of Garland out of his mind.

You remind me of Kuja, you know."

"What? I'm nothing like him!" Zidane protested. He pulled back, but it was at the same time that she broke off to look him in the eye, so she didn't notice the motion.

"You say that like you actually know him," she remarked. "But I see him. His mind goes to dark places, sometimes. He gets that same shadow creeping in his voice that you had just now. And I know that it wasn't just because of what I know now—that he was sent to look after me. Every time I hear that shadow, I want to help him."

Zidane stood up. "You love him, don't you? Figures," he told her as he wandered a few steps away.

"Seeing that look in your eyes makes me want to help you, too!" she protested and followed him. "Zidane, how old are you? You're not even a prince, and you act like you never had a childhood."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Royalty never experience childhood. From the time we can speak and read—and you can believe those skills are taught to us quicker than children would learn otherwise—we're raised to either replace the person who's sitting on the throne, or facilitate their power through alliance or marriage or leading an army in their name. So if you want to know if I think badly of you or not, tell me why you're doing this. Where do you come from? Are you from the Northern Continent?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Zidane laughed. "But I'll tell you something that Kuja just found out, kind of like how you just learned who you are: I'm his brother. That's your answer."

"So it all has to do with your father."

'How did you know?' hovered on Zidane's tongue as he looked up in shock into Kris's eyes. But he didn't say that. Instead he said, "Kris, you're really pretty. You're beautiful. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if things had gone a different way—if I'd met you in some other circumstance—I think I'd fall in love with you."

She smiled. "You know what? I think I would, too. And you wouldn't even have to be a prince. So tell me: what are you doing here?"

He smiled, and pulled a charm out of his pocket. It stung a little every time that he realized how effortlessly this would have been for Kuja, and so much work for him. All because Garland simply hadn't bothered the second time around.

"Bidding you sweet dreams," he said quietly.


	6. The Blood of Millions

**Disclaimer**: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

It was interesting to write Garland this time around, since his role is necessarily altered slightly. Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Six: The Blood of Millions**

The dream began, as always, with fire. Fire that he controlled. But this time, it didn't stop.

He raised his hands in steady evocation of the magic that fueled the destruction. Behind him, an old man imprisoned in obsidian armor with a red orb in place of a heart settled an encouraging hand on his shoulder.

That man's name was Garland, although the dream told him that he called him 'father'. Kuja was twelve; young enough to accept 'because I want you to' as a reason for murdering an entire race.

Garland's words swelled in and out of focus. "Continue," he gently ordered Kuja even as he looked at him with something like pride in his eyes. "…going…monitor the flow of souls…"

Kuja wandered purposelessly through the now-ruins, uncertain of what to do without Garland's leadership. Now that he had called the fire forth into being, it seemed to be doing all his work for him.

And suddenly, he was at the water, staring into the eyes of a mother and child preparing a boat. He knew that he couldn't let them live, but the look in the mother's eyes kept the magic from coming to him. It made no sense, but then again, Garland had been there to block the wide-eyed gazes from reaching Kuja before.

The mother, sensing his hesitation, lunged at him in self-defense. He hit the water—

"Kuja, come on. I know you're not feeling so hot right now, so drink this…"

The fires seen through murky water faded and Zidane's face swam into just out of focus. He felt a cup of something like tea pressed to his lips, and without questioning, he drank. Then he sank deep, deep into dream once again.

"Why don't they look like me, Garland?" a young Kuja said softly, ducking shyly behind Garland's leg—a pillar of armor to distance him from the blond-haired and glassy-eyed creatures that Garland told him were his brothers and sisters.

"They're the next generation of Terrans. Or they will be, once they have souls to call their own. They're just vessels now," Garland explained to him.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Garland looked over his shoulder at Kuja. "What do you mean?"

Kuja let go of Garland's leg. "You made so many of them, but there's only one of me. So you like them better…?"

"Of course not," Garland laughed. "What could make you think such a thing? Kuja, you look different from them because you have a different place in Terra's new history. They will populate Terra, but you will be the one who will give them a Terra on which to live. You're their angel."

" 'Angel'," Kuja grumbled. "But aren't those supposed to be people who go around doing stuff like healing? That sounds boring."

"That's not quite what angels are. Maybe I should make you give the ancient texts another read before bed tonight," Garland suggested.

"Don't make me read them again, I just did last week," Kuja protested.

Garland let the matter drop. "You will be doing a great service to Terra. You will be Terra's Angel of Death. You will bring souls from the planet down below, so that your brothers and sisters can laugh and play like you do."

"So I have a soul but they don't? Where did my soul come from if there wasn't anyone to go down to Gaia to go get one?"

"You have one of the last preserved souls of Terra from before Terra's decline. That is why you will be able to summon forth the powers that will aid you as an Angel of Death."

"Angel of Death…" Kuja murmured. He liked the sound of it; he didn't really know what 'death' meant, but the way it rolled off his tongue sounded interesting. "Garland, what's 'death'?"

"Something you will never experience. You, Kuja, will live forever. You are immortal."

Kuja passed between the dreams cast in blue light and the dream where Zidane made him drink the strange-tasting tea without distinction. Rarely, he would become aware enough of himself before Zidane gave him the tea to realize that the dreams in blue light were not dreams, but memories. The world before he was twelve had suddenly awoken in him. It was the world after, the one of Lindblum and Alexandria, that had faded into the background.

After an indiscriminate time, nausea nudged Kuja into waking.

He had barely opened his eyes when he saw that he was surrounded by a blinding scarlet light. After quickly shutting them again, he tried and failed to move his limbs. The purest sensation of panic and the urge to fight ripped through him like wildfire.

The white feathers of his trance overtook him, and he howled in pain.

It felt like a million hungry mouths and claws needed his heart to sate their gluttony and each one had grasped his soul in their piercing jaws at once. He died thousands and thousands of deaths, each of them angry. And just when he wanted to contribute his own end, to become the final death, he opened his eyes and the scarlet light was gone. But so were his white feathers. He had soaked up the blood of millions in his plumes and it was inside of him that the scarlet light had fled.

He could move now, and he rolled from his back onto his hands and knees and gagged.

"Hey big brother, you're not looking so good. Might want to lay off the angry souls, if you know what I mean."

Kuja looked up. There was Zidane, standing on a platform above him. With a surge of renewed fear, Kuja realized that he knew exactly where he was: the airship that had haunted his dreams, Garland's airship. Only this was no dream.

"Yeah, I did this to you," Zidane admitted. "Hey, don't look at me like that, did you really expect any better out of me?"

"What exactly did you to me?" Kuja demanded, spacing his words between pangs of gnawing pain.

Zidane laughed. "Well, let's see. I knocked you unconscious and kept you drugged for a week while I extracted those summons from your precious princess's body and that hideous queen used them to lay waste to Lindblum and Treno. Your Black Mages were pretty handy, too. With the souls I gathered from Burmecia, Lindblum, and Treno, in addition to the reservoir of souls that our old man keeps up here in the Invincible, I gave your trance a little boost. But no time to waste, because Alexandria's next on the list."

Lindblum. Kuja wanted to believe that Zidane was lying to him just to get under his skin, but the souls ripping him apart told him differently. The place that he had called home. Just because that had been a lie didn't mean that he wanted that lie burned to the ground.

"You're not," Kuja said, "going to destroy Alexandria."

Zidane nodded in agreement. "That's the idea. I'm not destroying Alexandria... you are."

"I'd sooner die."

"No, you're not dying until later. Kuja, trust me, I know what I'm doing."

Kuja glared daggers at Zidane. If he had black magic, then he would use that destructive power for something good. His memories had not provided him with Zidane's identity; whether he was one of those soulless Genomes or something else, Kuja didn't want to kill him. But he didn't have a problem with making sure that Zidane wouldn't cause any more damage.

Zidane rolled his eyes. "What are you going to do, throw some fireworks at me? Right. I'd like to see you try."

"You asked," Kuja muttered.

The pain inside of Kuja caught along his veins. The magic inside attached to the pain of those souls, but it didn't heal him, didn't protect him. It snared a bond with the inflamed souls and alchemized the pain into a tangible form, and it escaped his body in a flare of untempered magical energy.

When all the pain had finally bled out of him, he passed out of trance and his knees buckled underneath him. But even though the fire within was silenced, it still raged around him. He choked on the smoke.

Ruins. He sat in rubble, surrounded by ruins as far as he could see. He looked to the sky, and found two things: the airship rising above the clouds, and the skeleton of the Alexandrian castle.

Zidane had baited him. He had told Kuja that he intended to use him like this, and Kuja had fallen for it still. He couldn't control the fire that welled up inside him whenever he tranced, and he carried within him the unjust deaths of millions that had been slain to slake Terra's thirst. But that wasn't the worst part.

Garland's words floated back to him. This was the purpose for which he was alive. Not to teach the future queen of Alexandria white magic and protect her, not to provide the barren marriage of the Queen and Regent of Lindblum with stability and something to care for. No, he was here to destroy all of it. Personally.

"Kuja…? Kuja, what are you doing here?"

He looked up. Suddenly, he couldn't think of a single person that he would want to chance upon him like this. There was no one close enough to him that he could face explaining the truth. Especially not General Beatrix, not when she stood there with her sword already drawn even though she knew it was him.

"This is the center of the blast," she added. "How are you alive?"

He didn't say anything. There was only the sound of fire smoldering apart from her voice.

"Well, this is… a shock," she admitted. "I look all over the continent for you and here you are, in the middle of Alexandria—or, I…did you see the attacker? It was like one of Brahne's summons, a firebird but stripped of its wings…"

Kuja plucked one of the stray scarlet feathers from his clothes, and held it up to her. "Beatrix, I…"

Her eyes went wide. "Kuja, you couldn't have." Then she paused. "Did you? Did you destroy Alexandria?"

He let the feather slip out of his hands and his eyes followed its slow path through the air to the scorched ground. He didn't want to give her another reason to hate him.

Her sword clattered as it dropped to the ground. "Kuja," she said deathly quiet. "Look at me."

Then she dropped to the ground and held him tight.


	7. Reunion

**Disclaimer: **I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

This chapter was originally included with the next one after this, but I felt that Garnet and Vivi should have one final appearance (since this is pretty close to the end!) Please enjoy and review!

~greyondo

**Chapter Seven: Reunion**

"Kuja, what is happening to you?" Beatrix asked as she pulled back just far enough to see his face, but not an inch further away.

"I… I wish I had an easy answer for you. I just—" He winced. "I feel lightheaded…"

Beatrix sighed heavily. "You're completely hopeless. Mages," she said, shaking her head. "Lie down; I had Lindblum soldiers—the ones who survived—following me, they'll catch up soon enough. Lindblum's your home, isn't it," she remarked thoughtfully.

She helped him lie down, and then reached to her belt and pulled out a flask. "Just water," she said and slipped her arm under his head so that she could tip the water into his mouth.

Kuja hesitated.

"It's not drugged, I promise," she said with a smile. "Princess—pardon me, Queen—Garnet told me that was how she had given you the slip. I found the crash site in Burmecia last week, but your trail went cold after that."

"Queen?"

Beatrix nodded. "Mm-hm. Well, there's been no time for a coronation, since her Majesty's only been Queen for about an hour, give or take. Brahne… was in the castle," Beatrix finished quietly.

He had killed Queen Brahne.

"This is the second home I've taken away from Kris," Kuja said just before Beatrix forced him to take a long drink.

Beatrix frowned. "Kuja…?"

"That's the name she gave herself in Dali when we disappeared. Come on, General. You know that Garnet isn't really Brahne's biological child; she was a summoner orphan. I'm the one who razed the summoner's village, Madain Sari."

"I know about Garnet's heritage," Beatrix sighed. "But that's ridiculous, Kuja; it was a storm. And you would have been, what, twelve when that happened?"

"You know that nightmare that she has, with the cliff on fire and the storm?" Kuja said. Feeling drained, he leaned into Beatrix's arm and closed his eyes. "I have it too, except I'm the one who controls the fire. And I am twelve in that dream. After Madain Sari burned, a woman trying to defend her child knocked me unconscious and I fell into the sea. I think that may have been Garnet's birth mother."

"A dream, Kuja. A dream."

Kuja shook his head. "You lost my trail after Burmecia because I spent all of last week in an airship. Zidane kept me asleep there while he manipulated Queen Brahne to attack Treno and Lindblum. And my dreams weren't dreams. They were memories."

Beatrix made a wordless noise of anger and held him closer.

"What is it?"

"He kidnapped you, and used you, you of all people, the princess' white magic tutor who is too weak-kneed to hurt a flan, to do this to my kingdom. How am I supposed to feel?!"

Kuja smiled. "That hurts, I'll have you know. When did I ever give you that impression?"

"The day you showed up in court and introduced yourself as a white mage. That's all I needed to know. What, you never did anything to prove me wrong," she added.

Kuja knew what he had to do.

"I have to go home."

"You'll be going home soon."

"No, I can't go back to Lindblum. Not now. Hildegarde and Cid aren't my parents, and Lindblum isn't my home. I mean my real home. Up there… Terra…"

"Terra? You mean the moon?"

"Yes. Terra is dying, and if it can drain all the life out of this world, then it can blossom again. Garland, the one who watches over Terra, made me so that I could set Gaia aflame. Zidane is from Terra too, although I'm not sure how he fits into everything."

"Did Zidane tell you all of this?" Beatrix wanted to know. "None of that makes any sense. Nobody lives up there."

"Trust me, I remember. That's why I have to go back—I have to return to that place. I need to see if I can't try to convince Garland and Zidane to stop, to see if they can't find another way so that no one else has to die."

"Well, you can hardly go alone," she said confidently.

Kuja shook his head. "I have to go alone. The only way I know how to get to Terra is with Zidane, and I don't know what he'll do to you. I don't know if I can—"

"It's sweet of you to offer, but I'd be less worried if I were keeping you safe than if it were the other way around," Beatrix said lightly.

Kuja looked up at her, and suddenly in that moment, it felt right to give up most of his strength for something trivial and immeasurably important at the same time. "Beatrix, I…"

But when he reached up to kiss her, he was interrupted by a short and obvious cough.

"Sorry, but isn't the guy supposed to be the one holding the girl?" Zidane's voice called out. "Though between the two of you, it's hard enough to guess who's the knight and who's the fair lady anyways."

Kuja was close enough to feel an impatient growl rise in Beatrix's throat. "Kuja, don't move," she muttered as she set him down and grasped her sword. She rose up into a guarding stance above him.

"Challenged by the most valued knight of Queen Brahne—sorry, the late Queen Brahne? Not sure if I'm as enamored with the prize as you are, but he is kind of necessary. So pick one, General Beatrix. You want to die by my hand now or by your boy-toy's magic later?"

Beatrix ignored him. "You're nothing but scum. You were safe when you cowered behind the late Queen Brahne, but Garnet is the queen now, and once more I feel that I can obey the wishes of the one I've sworn to protect. I don't believe that Queen Garnet would mind if I removed you from our worries."

"What makes you so confident about that?" Zidane retorted. "Yeah, as far as your darling little mass murderer is concerned, she would just love for you to make sure he's safe, even though I'm sure she's less than pleased about how you've somehow snagged his eye. But how do you know she'd want me dead?"

A fireball sung past Zidane's face, in between his smirk and Beatrix's glare.

"Because you killed my mother!"

Even with her face obscured by a white robe, the newly crowned queen's voice was unmistakable. Vivi stood in front of her, a black mage's staff gripped tight in his hands. It struck Kuja that black magic could be used to protect, after all.

"My queen!" Beatrix called out. "You should be on your way to Lindblum by now!"

The new queen shrugged. "Seems I have a way of being in places where I'm not expected to be. Zidane, it goes without saying that you have gone too far. You may allow yourself to be placed under arrest now."

"You're an angel, you know that?" Zidane told her.

"Zidane, I meant what I said, from before. But that reality I spoke of is not this one, and I will not treat it as such. It is in keeping with Alexandria's custom of kindness that I am offering you the chance to be captured alive, not because of any sentiments from that conversation. Surrender to General Beatrix, and you will be escorted to prison in Lindblum. You will be given trial, for what it's worth."

"Hey, if you're looking for your mother's murderer, you've got the wrong guy. Really. Just ask that little doll of yours. He can sense his creator's magic from miles away, can't he? Kuja killed your dear mother, not me."

"I refuse to believe that. Even if Kuja's magic is what destroyed Alexandria, yours is a crime of intent," she replied coldly. "You don't judge the weapon, you judge its wielder."

"Did you hear that, Kuja? She just thinks of you as a weapon. Bet that makes you feel even less human than you do already. Sorry," Zidane laughed.

"I never said that—"

"Zidane, stop," Kuja called out as he struggled to his feet. "I… I want to go home. I give up. Take me there."

"Kuja, I swear to Alexander that I will smack you with the flat of this sword and deal with this myself if you don't stand down," Beatrix told him. "And I'm sure that my queen agrees with me."

"I certainly do."

"Me too," Vivi added quietly. "Kuja, you're the only family I have."

"I'm sorry," Kuja told them and shook his head. "You don't understand what's happening, and there's no time to explain. I have to go home. To my real home. And Zidane's the only one who can do that for me," he added, knowing that he didn't make sense to anyone.

"Sorry, people, looks like he's made his decision," Zidane said. "You know what they say, 'if you love someone, you'll let them go'…"

"That's 'go', not 'die'," Beatrix replied. "Kuja—"

"Beatrix," Kuja interrupted, "do you know what people will say to me if we go back to Lindblum and explain what happened? They'll tell me not to blame myself, that it wasn't my fault. That it just happened. My entire life could be explained by 'it just happened'. Fate has always done everything for me—this is my choice. You understand that, right?"

He knew she would; it was the entire reason that she stood there wielding that sword at that moment.

"You're an idiot," she told him. In the dancing fire, he could see the tears in her eyes. "A stupid idealistic mage with his head in the clouds. When you come back, I swear I'm going to—"

"Yeah, he loves you too," Zidane drawled. "Let's go."


	8. A Place of Silence and Screams

Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

I'm sorry that I couldn't get back to everyone's reviews. I did get a chance to read them, though, and thank you all for letting me know what you think! As usual, please enjoy and review!

~greyrondo

**Chapter Eight: A Place of Silence and Screams**

"Beatrix, I—" Kuja cried out. But a pillar of light descended from the darkened heavens and eclipsed Zidane and Kuja. When it disappeared, they did, too.

Onboard, Kuja drew away from Zidane as quickly as he could.

"Come on, I don't bite," Zidane joked. "So what's with your sudden sense of nostalgia? It brought you back here, so it's way too useful for me to be true."

Kuja ignored him and almost limped over to the far wall. He closed his eyes, and sank down against the wall. He would just rest for a moment. Never mind that it was food and intensive healing magic that he needed to clear the sleeping drug that Zidane had used from his body, magic to heal the gaping wounds in his energy from expelling so much power at once.

"You know that the princess—what'd she call herself, 'Kris'—was going on about 'choice', too? Kind of funny. And ironic. I mean, it was her choice that sent you to Burmecia, and to me. Which gave me a way to destroy Alexandria. So really, she hand-picked you for this. She chose to kill her mother. And she chose to become queen."

"Only your twisted logic would work that way—" Kuja breathed. He didn't want to talk to Zidane, or listen to him. But he supposed that if he was going to have the heart-to-heart that would save Gaia, he would need to have it right now.

"Zidane…" he called out weakly. "I take that back. Zidane. Please… I need your help."

Slowly, he heard Zidane walk over to him. "What are you whining about?"

Just as Zidane was almost there, Kuja grimaced, let out an only slightly exaggerated cry, and curled up on the floor. He wanted to put Zidane in the position of a healer and see what happened; no matter what, Zidane had to keep him alive, so that was some comfort.

"Just tell me why," Kuja breathed. "I remember, but my memories are those of a child's. And you're missing from my memories. I'm in your hands now. If I'm going to bear the weight and pain of these souls, then I want to hear you tell me why. I suppose that you're the only one I can trust…"

Just as he let those words slip from his mouth, he cried out.

"You…?" Zidane began, his voice hushed.

Then he laughed to himself. "I guess a silver tongue runs in the family, Kuja. You had me there for a second. Hey, even if you meant it, no way I'm explaining anything to you. That cute speech you gave to your flame? Stuff is going just keeping happening to you until you die. You don't get a choice. And guess what? You're not going to know why. I'm not going to let you rationalize me."

"What?" Kuja said, opening his eyes. "What does that even mean?"

"If I do something, it's not going to be for you, or because of you, or even in spite of you. Got that?"

"Zidane, you can't just say something like that to me. I don't know what's going on. None of this is my fault."

It became very, very quiet.

"Yeah. None of this is your fault," Zidane echoed breathlessly. "Right. And instead of a tail, I have fairy wings. Ignore the pain, it'll get worse later. I'm dropping you off in Bran Bal so you can take your sappy trip down memory lane while I take care of business. Don't talk to anyone; it's not worth the effort."

Kuja looked beyond Zidane and saw a pale blue landscape through the floor. Terra.

When the airship landed, they parted ways. "Where are you going, Zidane?" Kuja asked quietly.

"Somewhere I don't want you to go," Zidane replied brusquely, and set off. "I'm doing you a favor, letting you see this place. I should have left you on the ship. I shouldn't have even brought you to Terra."

"Zidane—" Kuja called out after him, but Zidane didn't want to hear anything from him.

In that instant of crystal silence, something settled in Kuja's heart. He knew that there would be no reasoning with this world. It was a desperate world that was dead already—he could feel its toxic poison traveling sluggishly through the air—but didn't want to believe it. Terra was a restless soul that had lost its way and, in its confusion, knew no better than to haunt the living.

This world had forged him with the powers to destroy, but somehow circumstance had turned him to healing magic instead. Maybe that had been his choice, after all.

He would need to destroy this place to heal it. So he looked at the village, and soon found that more than one pair of eyes was returning the favor.

To say that the Genomes were curious was an understatement. They stepped from their doorways and looked out of their windows in glowing wonder. And just like he remembered, they didn't look like him. He was the one who would bring them hope, the Garland of his memories had told him. If he just tranced and destroyed Terra right now, then he would kill them.

They would be safe on the Invincible. And he knew he had their attention, so he did something that made him suddenly very glad that no one else had accompanied him to Terra.

"My brothers and sisters," he called out in a flowery accent that he had once used to mock the nobles of Treno to make Vivi laugh, "do not fear me. Come before me and welcome me, for I have suffered much to bring myself before all of you and it is with tear-filled joy that I finally, after years of separation, look upon your faces."

This accent came to him far too naturally; it almost frightened him. Next thing he knew, he would be putting makeup on and strutting about in those high boots that were so popular with the dandies at court.

When they had gathered around him—perhaps twenty or thirty in all—he continued. "I am liberating you from the chains of you ancestor's mistakes. Terra is mine, now. As the pillars upon which I will build our shining new world, I invite you with open arms to board the Invincible, where you'll…"

He cleared his throat to give himself a moment to come up with something that sounded both grandiose and legitimate. "Where you shall witness the death of the planet that shackles you to this barren existence! Go now, and I will join you soon."

When the last one had entered the shelter of the Invincible, Kuja allowed his memories to take him where he felt he should go. "I can't believe all of that just came out of my mouth," he muttered to himself as he walked the path up to the Observatory.

When the path brought him as close as it would, he rocked back on his heels and stared into the huge orb. Within him, the souls stirred angrily. They knew the face of what had caused their death. But just when Kuja closed his eyes, he wondered about Zidane.

And then someone called his name.

Kuja turned around; perhaps ten feet away from him stood an old man encased in black armor with a glowing scarlet orb for a heart.

"My son, you've come home," Garland said in soft amazement. "How long we have searched…I never should have left you that night. I take all the blame. But look at how you've grown…"

Beneath his skin, the souls trembled. They wanted to tear Garland limb from limb. But Kuja could not shake the look in that old man's eye, a look that made his adopted parents' loving faces pale in comparison.

Garland drew close to him. There was something hypnotic glinting in his wrinkled eyes; Kuja felt his mind wander away from him as if it didn't intend to return.

"Father…?" Kuja whispered, but it felt more like compulsion than free will. It was dark and haunting magic that Garland cast over him, like Garland didn't want to give circumstance another chance to tear Kuja away from Terra's soil.

"Yeah, he grew up prettier than you expected, old man."

Garland's gaze darted behind him, and Kuja's mind snapped back into place. Whatever had just happened, Kuja felt as if, for a moment, he had lost his soul. But he didn't entirely recognize what had returned to him.

"Zidane," Garland said. "Did you bring him here?"

That made Zidane scowl as he sidled up to Garland. "Yeah, try to breathe more when you're showering me with accolades, I can't have you passing out on me. So what, you think you made him pretty enough to put his mug in all the future Terran history books, touting him as the precious Angel of Death who saved us all?"

Then he turned on Kuja. "I should be thanking you. As you can tell here, I wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for you. You don't remember me because I wasn't even an idea in Garland's head until he lost you. So he whipped me up in a hurry."

He eased himself in between Kuja and Garland, and Kuja couldn't tell who it was that Zidane really wanted to talk to. He faced Kuja, but the anger couldn't seem to pick a side.

"But still… kind of stings, know what I'm saying? That I was just cleaning up after you. That I'm the 'just in case' son. You know, the one that noble families on Gaia have after they give birth to the first one, in case something happens to him. They love the first one better. I mean, like I was saying earlier, you're a storybook angel, you know that? You just have to look in the mirror to tell that our old man loved making you best."

This was what Zidane had meant, when he said that he didn't want to do anything for Kuja. It wasn't Kuja's fault, but at the same time, Kuja couldn't think of anyone else to blame.

Wherever Kuja went, he destroyed. He had razed both of Garnet's homes. His presence had done nothing to save the fidelity of his adopted parents' marriage. Even when he thought he had created Vivi, he knew that Vivi would have been better off not knowing what a doll like him could easily become. And the only time he had let himself love Beatrix was after he had taken away her kingdom, her faith, and even then in the end he had broken her heart.

"Zidane!" Garland snapped. "I gave you your part to play. If you're dissatisfied, then that's fine. But are you so foolish to say aloud words that will hang before you for an eternity?"

"An eternity…?" Zidane repeated.

Suddenly, Kuja recalled when he was small and had asked Garland what 'death' meant. He had said, 'Something you will never experience. You, Kuja, will live forever. You are immortal.'

If he lived forever, how many people would he hurt?


	9. Restoring the Balance

Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. But everything not associated with IX (original plot, etc.) does belong to me.

This is the final chapter of Break My Fall! Thank you so much, everyone, for reading. Please enjoy and review!

**Chapter Nine: Restoring the Balance**

"You wish, old man," Zidane practically spat.

It made Zidane so happy right then to see the look of shock on Garland's face. So happy that he couldn't help but continue. "You see what I've done to him? His trance is stuffed to the breaking point with souls that are just itching to tear a Terran-born like him into millions and millions of pieces. He's dying with every breath he takes. You've got the power to obtain Gaia's souls in their entirety, but you won't have your precious son."

Garland's eyes flashed fire. It was a look that wouldn't be in a single one of Kuja's newly regained memories, but Zidane knew it too well. "Why have you done this?"

Zidane rolled his eyes. "Because you're just never going to let go of him, are you? I've spent my entire life looking out for him because you just couldn't get over it. Kuja isn't here because he's ready to sign up to lead Terra to greatness; he's here because he wants to save Gaia. Your precious firstborn son is dead. But you're never going to accept me in his place, are you?"

And Zidane let out a painful breath he didn't know that he had been holding inside of himself. Garland was never going to see him as anything but a shadow of Kuja, even though Zidane had done everything for Terra while Kuja had done nothing but look pretty.

If Garland couldn't see that, then Zidane decided that Garland didn't deserve to see Terra reborn. Before the old man's sluggish reflexes could catch up, Zidane unsheathed one of his daggers and plunged it into Garland's back. He dragged it upwards through Garland's mummified remains of a spinal cord, and then left a killing crack in the red orb that kept Garland's soul pinned to his body until now.

"You want to negotiate something for Gaia, you talk to me now, not Garland," Zidane said to Kuja as he kicked the old man's husk aside. "Humor me with the best bargain you can come up with. Who knows, maybe I'll strike a deal with you after all. What are you willing to sell—your precious General? Your other mommy and daddy in Lindblum?"

But for some reason, Kuja shook his head and closed his eyes. "No. No negotiations. There's only one way for this to end."

He was going to trance here and now? Zidane's eyes went wide. If Kuja tranced here, then Zidane would need all the luck he'd ever wasted to protect him.

"Don't do that, Kuja, you'll die."

But Kuja laughed. It wasn't a laugh he had heard before from the white mage in Alexandria, it was one he had expected to hear from Terra's Angel of Death. "I can feel them. They want to end me. I'm going to die anyways… I might as well take this place with me. It's too late; everything's already set in motion. The only thing to do is destroy this place so that no one else will have to nurture its soil with their blood…"

He had pushed Kuja too far. He had starved him, he had pushed him to the edge of his sanity and past it. Zidane had said that he had wanted to break Kuja before he fell.

"Do you know what this feels like? This feels right. Like I've strayed from the path that fate set out for me, and now I've found it. It's like I'm coming home… Zidane, go to the Invincible. There you will find the other Genomes. Take them to Gaia, and let their soulless bodies fill with life. Make sure that you let that happen to you, too."

"What…?" Zidane whispered. "Big brother?"

Kuja nodded as scarlet plumage erupted from his skin. "Let me be your big brother for once. I won't get another chance to be a part of a family…"

As Zidane ran, emptiness clawed at his insides. Kuja was going to die. Around him, the air pulled apart as black magic scorched the pathways. A crystal mushroom shattered above his head, but he kept going.

Plumes of magic toppled the spires of Pandaemonium as Zidane boarded the Invincible.

The other Genomes stared at him the entire journey back to the surface of Gaia, and he tried not to meet their glassy eyes. No doubt they had expected to see Kuja, but none of them had enough courage to question Zidane. But they did still attempt to speak to him.

"Zidane, you're—"

"Shut up!" he snapped. How dare Kuja sacrifice himself for him?

Kuja had killed himself so that Zidane could be free. But as the emptiness filled with guilt, Zidane burned with sudden irrational hatred. This was just another way that Kuja had defined Zidane's life. Now not only was Kuja the reason he had been born; Kuja was the reason that he was here right now. He was piloting an airship full of his soulless brothers and sisters to freedom and he had no idea why, except that Kuja had told him to do so.

"What are you looking at?" Zidane snapped as his gaze jerked upwards. But their stares weren't focused on him; they were passing over the Iifa Tree.

He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be just another blond-haired, blue-eyed vessel amongst all these others, standing here without direction. He landed the Invincible on the cracked earth just outside of the Iifa Tree's trunk.

Passing by the other Genomes as if they were merely his reflection in the mirror, he exited the airship and was instantly engulfed by the searing desert wind. He loved it. That's when he looked down, and noticed that the earth had been stained with blood. His blood.

That was what the Genomes had been trying to tell him. That he had been too consumed by hatred in his escape back to the Invincible to notice that a shard of Terra's crystalline flora had gouged him in the side.

Zidane choked on the taste of iron. And in that instant, he had to know. He had to know if Kuja was really dead. That was the last thing he wanted to do with his life if he didn't survive this; outlive Kuja.

As he stared up at the twilight sky, a flame fell from the heavens into the crown of the Iifa Tree.

"Kuja," Zidane said to himself and he smiled ruefully. "I'm coming after you."

The Iifa Tree attempted to dispel him with all its might. Whether it was somehow inexplicably protecting Kuja or simply trying to kill him, he wouldn't let it win. He wouldn't let Terra win, even as the wound Terra had inflicted was killing him.

But once he reached the center of the trunk, he couldn't go any further. His knees buckled underneath him awkwardly and he found himself lying down, staring at the fading sunlight as it filtered through the branches.

"If you can hear me, Kuja… I win. I lived alone, let me die alone."

He looked up, at the nest of intersecting branches cradling the last space of bloodied sunlight straining through the hollow center of the boughs. Something glinted—silver hair.

"Not you," were Zidane's first words, pierced with fire even as blood stained his lips. But injured as he was, he struggled to prop himself up on his elbows just as Kuja drew worriedly over him. "Anyone but you. You took everything from me before I even knew it was mine."

Kuja shook his head. "No. I won't let you die…"

Zidane thought it would make him happy to see that Kuja couldn't even finish whatever syrupy sentence he had concocted. But knowing that Kuja was dead was one thing; watching him die was another.

He didn't want to watch Kuja die. That would put the blame on Zidane.

Somewhere, Zidane found the impossible strength to scramble to his feet, even though he cried out as he did so. There was barely enough room for him to stand. He caught dark sight of the vacant cavern in the Iifa Tree's true depths.

"Get out of here," Zidane growls through clenched teeth. "Even better, why don't I help you—"

Just as his grip clenched Kuja's shoulders, his eyes went wide and his hands lost their focus as both his gaze and Kuja's fixated on the wound that had gouged Zidane's side.

White magic flowed frantically. "Brother…" Zidane whispered hollowly. "Stop."

"No," Kuja said flatly. But the white magic wasn't fast or strong enough, and they both knew it. "I won't let you do this to yourself."

"No?" Zidane echoed. "I… I did everything for you. It's not fair. I'd give anything to be you. I just should have been made first. Then everything would have been perfect. I would have been perfect. Garland would have wanted me if I were the older one. Like I can control any of that…"

"I don't know if that would have made any difference, Zidane. Who knows what would have happened had things gone another way. Let's just go—"

Kuja's magic ebbed from him like a receding tide; Kuja closed his eyes.

"Hey, Kuja. Don't do that. Don't you dare close your eyes on me—"

But Zidane didn't think he had the strength to keep himself from doing the same thing. Zidane pulled a bitter grimace, and—

He choked on mid-morning sunlight and the heavy warmth of rough linens and quilts. The sun that streamed in through the lattice-leaded window seemed so tangible that it sparkled iridescent in the air, like filaments of crystal, or impossibly-thin silver lace.

"Right through here."

A lacquer-nailed hand pressed between his ribs, just below his heart.

Zidane paused and let the fairytale reality around him stop spinning. The iridescent strands of lavender and sky blue were Kuja's hair; Kuja bowed his head low over him like shelter. And when Kuja's words made sense, Zidane understood that shelter was meant to keep something—Zidane's life—inside the bounds of Kuja's rigidly set arms.

"…where is this?" escaped from Zidane's lips at the same time that he figured it out himself. Just past the doily window trimmings, he caught the anxious and trembling gazes of black mages too afraid to be in the same room with their creator.

"I'm fairly surprised that they let me beyond the gate, but there you have it. You were muttering something ridiculous in your sleep, something about… goodness, I don't know. Trading places. It would have been quite entertaining, given better circumstances."

"What happened?" Zidane said softly, and tried to sit up.

"Don't even think about it, moron," Kuja snapped wearily, and Zidane wilted and gave up for the moment. "And you are a moron. You simply couldn't get even a thread of reason past your thick skull. So you risked life and limb for what passes in your mind as a logical train of thought, and here we are with your life intact. Barely."

Bewildered, Zidane whispered, "…you saved me?"

Even as he said it, Kuja shifted from underneath the linens and quilts and set Zidane down on the pillows in a way that meant to be gentle but didn't want to be risk being seen as such.

"From yourself, if that's what you mean," Kuja muttered as he stood beside the bedside table, and then cleared his throat.

Zidane looked at his brother. "Kuja… uh… what are you wearing?" Where had his court mage's robes gone, and what had possessed his brother to wear whatever that was instead?

Kuja glared at him.

"Anyways," Kuja said louder, "now that you're all set to go back to your precious queen and the rest of your partners in idiocy, that hideous rat-girl Freya and whatnot, I'm more than ready to take my leave."

His queen. Who was Zidane's queen? Kuja didn't mean Garnet, did he? And what was that about Freya? Zidane's mind rushed for answers, and slowly, slowly, they trickled to him.

He recalled a play, and fireworks. No, not fireworks. Cannon fire. And then the Mist, and an out-of-place silver wraith standing above him in the land of sad and unceasing rain. He remembered a flash of hate in indigo eyes just like his, and that hatred's fade that took a long time in coming.

And there was a wish. A wish that if it would save Kuja's life, Zidane would have gladly traded places with him.

"Kuja, where are you going?"

Kuja didn't stop and didn't even give Zidane's words any recognition until he reached the doorway. Then he stopped, and sighed. That was his answer. Then he turned around.

It wouldn't have done anyone any good to rewrite the past. He couldn't save Kuja by taking his place. If they were so similar, then it would have only taken a few different chances and choices for Kuja to never wish for Zidane to ever sacrifice himself like that.

"Zidane, I never asked you to die for me."

Or maybe not even that much.

THE END


End file.
